At this point, the only people above him on the leaderboard were his enemies, and none of his allies were there. He wouldn't have minded if someone like Eduardo or Lao had been number one, but sadly that was not to be. There always had to be a villain to every story, and Sam had found his. At least until the real battle started in a hundred years.

Sam tried to not to think about that much, but he found his mind drifting there more and more as time went on. The effects of his stats upon his body were gradually changing his life view, and a hundred years did not seem like that much time anymore. In a year, his lifespan would probably be many times that anyway. Suddenly, he wanted to leave this tournament and level up instead of participate in this System sanctioned gladiator match. He needed the rewards though, so he could not afford to sacrifice his possible edge in the world for a simple bit of laziness. He had Jeffrey and Rax to think of, as well as the rest of his new allies. They would need to be protected from the depredations of the Overlord and his ilk, and Sam would be the one to do it.

The reward that would make or break his chances in the long run was the personal tutelage one. An E Ranker would probably have a wealth of wisdom to share with their pupils, but unfortunately the second place winner also had an opportunity to do that as well. In the scenario in which Sam won and the Overlord placed second, he would have to be on his toes after the month was over because both of them would have been preparing at the same pace. Of course, the format of the training could be completely different than a flat period after the tournament's end, but it was still important.

Sam looked up at the man who was the subject of his thoughts, and then reconsidered his aspiration of reaching the top two places, as it sounded pretty unlikely. He did not know this, but the Overlord was thinking the exact opposite thoughts. He had detected Sam’s new power and he knew that in the end, Sam was the one who he would be fighting against. Rodney Kane was powerful, but he would not be able to stand against someone with the highest tiered Dao in the universe.

The Overlord could see the power rolling off of Sam in waves, not that it was power per se, but rather potential. Sam had not gotten anywhere near the full amount of power out of his Dao that he could possibly do so, and if he was able to fully come into his own, then he could possibly beat him. Besides, he had to focus on what would come after as well. The Overlord knew that he would either place first or second, with first being the most likely possibility, but he did not know if Sam would have a new influx of power some time soon.

Sam watched as the next few fights went on, and a few people were banished from the tournament. Still, they would be doing pretty well for themselves regardless. A hundred thousand credits was quite a lot of money, and Sam expected that there would be a new surge in the number of Dao wielders in the world as the wise people used their money to purchase a Dao guide. Some would of course spend it on luxury, but the ones who were destined for greatness would use it for the right purpose.

Soon, the bouts in the losers’ bracket were over for the day and the real fights began. Reaper was up first, the System clearly trying to punish him for exploiting the rules like had had, He was still weak from his healing, but he could not back down or else he would be disqualified.

He was up against Melissa Tang, a woman who Sam had not seen fight before. She was a slight figure, with a survivalist’s kit, wearing practical clothes of what seemed to be some sort of white fur. Sam was confused as to why she was wearing something like that in a temperature controlled environment, but he would reserve judgment until he saw her fight.

She wielded a gun and a knife combo, with a long machete clutched in her right hand and a pistol in her left. Both of them were part of a matching set, with the same paint scheme and alloy composition. She was clearly ready for battle and the scars on her face told Sam that her life since the initialization had not been easy. She didn't look that imposing, but Sam knew that Reaper was in for a tough fight.

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Reaper began to channel his ectoplasm and started to create his full body armor before the match started. As he did so, Melissa shifted and then called something out to him.

“Ah, a necro. Who did you use to gain your power?”

The man flushed and stopped channeling his power, clearly perturbed.

“Who told you that?” He asked, his voice stony. She chuckled and turned to face the crowd.

“You all know how elemental awakening works, right? Well, how exactly do you get closer to death?”

Reaper dashed over to her and tried to hit her, but she dodged.

“Shut the hell up!” He screamed as he ran. She started laughing and continued to taunt him,

“Anyway, I’m sure that you all understand what I am getting at now.” Indeed, Sam saw it after a few moments of thought and he was laughing heartily at the expense of Reaper. It didn't hurt that the man had been one of his chief tormentors. The entire audience started laughing as well, the implication clear. Sam saw a few people shrink, probably also practitioners of the deathly arts.

Shaking his head, Sam watched as the battle began in earnest. Even the people on the other side were laughing as well, showing just how disloyal to each other they were. Reaper was clearly enraged, and his movements were clumsy and full of anger against the woman who had defamed him. He tried to hit her, but as much as he wanted to, he was not in the right frame of mind for the fight. Every now and again, she would dance in and carve a wound into his flesh, almost effortlessly. Her gun had not come into play yet, and Sam wondered why. Then something strange happened.

Reaper began to calm down, and his movement shifted from being jerky and unsophisticated into being precisely placed and targeted. The change was marked, and Melissa was suddenly on the defensive. Sam felt a strange energy off of Reaper, and as it started to burgeon, Sam realized that he was beginning to form his Dao. This battle had unlocked his innermost potential, and his opponent didn't end this quickly, then she would be the one who was on the back foot.

She tried, she most certainly tried, but she was unable to stop him before he fully formed his Dao. This process seemed strange to Sam as the Dao formed over the course of a few minutes, rather than instantly. If that had happened when he was fighting against Lena Scarlet, he would not be there now.

Wondering if his mysterious aptitude for the Dao was what had allowed him to do that, he watched as the Dao blossomed into full form. It projected out a wave of apathy and misery, exactly what Sam expected from someone like Reaper. There were many different interpretations of death, and it was clear that Reaper had taken the most miserable of them. Different cultures had different views of death, and many of them had seen it as something to celebrate, the passing of a soul into their desired afterlife. Reaper however dismissed all of this. His cosmology had no room for such idyllic hopes and dreams, and like his name he would deliver final death to everyone in existence. Or at least, he would try.

Sam had been sucked into the pit of endless misery by a small amount before he had escaped the gravity well of the man’s Dao, but many of the people in the audience seemed to be crying. They were caught up in a vision of their own demise and this was what instilled such terror in them.

A shield slammed down around the arena, and the aura cut off, focused instead to the inside of the shield. Melissa paled as she faced down the Dao infused aura of Reaper and she gritted her teeth rather than give up. She did not possess a Dao, but she was higher level than the man. It was clear that he would brook no surrender, so she had to be very clear about her yielding if it came to that.

Sam could tell that Reaper desired nothing more than the deaths of everyone in this area, more than anything else in the world. That would grant him immense power, as his comprehension of his Dao would skyrocket.

In the Boundless Expanse proper, Death cultivators were viewed with a healthy dose of fear. They usually found themselves victims to their own creed, but the few that did survive became some of the most powerful beings in the cosmos. They could blast through levels by basking in the concentrated death energy of millions of slaughtered souls and thus ascend the ranks in mere years or decades. This all slowed down eventually, but in the beginning, they had a good run of it. One of the main limiters to the number of such cultivators was the fact that most people had little or no affinity for Death, as only the insane would wish to further Death’s goals among the living.